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Two out of three for Gordon in list of best gastropubs
Elizabeth Hopkirk, Evening Standard03.09.08
The best gastropubs in London are named today.
Michelin selected nine venues in the capital for praise as "inspectors' favourites". They also announced their pub of the year in the Michelin Eating Out in Pubs Guide 2009.
But there were mixed results for Gordon Ramsay who has three gastropubs in London. The Narrow in Limehouse and the Devonshire in Chiswick were chosen as favourites.
His third pub venture, The Warrington in Maida Vale, fails to make the grade.
Other inspectors' picks include the Havelock Tavern in Shepherd's Bush, which editor Derek Bulmer praised. He said: "The Havelock has an unusually charming atmosphere that's very hard to find in London.
"It has a lived-in feel but with a certain style and a lot more charm and flair about it than the others."
Mr Bulmer added: "The pubs we've chosen in the capital are old London boozers of yesteryear which have been turned into cutting-edge gastropubs.
"They are competing with restaurants which are serving the best food in the country. In the countryside they tend to be more characterful, traditional pubs beside a babbling brook serving nice food."
The Warrington opened at the beginning of this year in a grand old Victorian pub with an Art Nouveau-style interior. It received mixed reviews.
Mr Bulmer said: "All the pubs in the guide are good. But we simply didn't eat as well in the Warrington as we did at The Narrow and The Devonshire. It was the least interesting of Ramsay's pubs."
More than 10 per cent of all the Michelin guide's entries are in the capital. Mr Bulmer said this is because the London gastropub revolution, pioneered by the Eagle in Farringdon in the early Nineties, had failed to take off in other cities.
He said: "London is still very much the driving force behind the gastropub movement. Other cities haven't followed the London pattern. Most of the other pubs in the guide are out in the sticks, not in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds. It's quite strange that a phenomenon that started as a city trend has turned rural."
He suggested the reasons might include London's concentration of affluent consumers as well as the ease of getting into the countryside from Britain's smaller cities.
The guide named the Punch Bowl Inn at Croswaithe, Cumbria, as its pub of the year, praising its open fires and meals based on seasonal local produce.
Mr Bulmer also picked out the Anchor and Hope in Southwark and Chelsea's Admiral Codrington. He said: "The Anchor and Hope is a very well-run pub and they are doing something really quite special with their food.
"The Admiral Codrington is an old Sloaney hangout but they have put a conservatory in the back and that's really quite charming as well."
